Lock and Key(74)

“So what’s the story here?” I asked him as we got into the elevator. I pulled the dry-cleaning tag where I could see it. “Who’s P. Collins?”

“A mystery,” he said.

“Yeah? How so?”

“You’ll see.”

On the seventh floor, we stepped out into a long hall lined with identical doors. Nate walked down about halfway, then pulled out his keys and opened the door in front of him. “Go ahead,” he said.

When I stepped in, the first thing I was aware of was the stillness. Not just a sense of something being empty, but almost hollow, even though the apartment was fully furnished with sleek, contemporary furniture. In fact, it looked like something out of a magazine, that perfect.

“Wow,” I said as Nate took the cleaning from me, disappearing into a bedroom that was off to the right. I walked over to a row of windows that looked out over the entire town, and for miles farther; it was like being on top of the world. “This is amazing.”

“It is,” he said, coming back into the room. “Which is why it’s so weird that whoever it belongs to is never here.”

“They must be,” I said. “They have dry-cleaning.”

“That’s the only thing, though,” he said. “And it’s just a duvet cover. We pick it up about every month or so.”

I walked into the kitchen, looking around. The fridge was bare, the counters spotless except for one bottle cap, turned upside down. “Aha,” I said. “They drink root beer.”

“That’s mine,” Nate said. “I left it there last time as an experiment, just to see if anyone moved it or threw it away.”

“And it’s still here?”

“Weird, right?” He walked back over to the windows, pulling open a glass door. Immediately I could smell fresh air blowing in. “I figure it’s got to be a rental, or some company -owned kind of deal. For visiting executives or something. ”

I went into the living room, scanning a low bookcase by the couch. There were a few novels, a guide to traveling in Mexico, a couple of architectural-design books. “I don’t know,” I said. “I bet someone lives here.”

“Well, if they do, I feel for them,” he said, leaning into the open door. “They don’t even have any pictures up.”

“Pictures? ”

“You know, of family or friends. Some proof of a life, you know?”

I thought of my own room back at Cora’s—the blank walls, how I’d only barely unpacked. What would someone think, coming in and seeing my stuff? A few clothes, some books. Not much to go on.

Nate had gone outside, and was now on the small terrace, looking out into the distance. When I came to stand next to him, he looked down at my hand, still crisscrossed with scratches. “Oh, I totally forgot,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small tube. “I got something at One World for that.”

BOYD’S BALM, it said in red letters. As he uncapped it, I said, “What is this, exactly?”

“It’s like natural Neosporin,” he explained. When I gave him a doubtful look, he added, “Marla swears by it.”

“Oh, well. Then by all means.” He gestured for me to stick out my hand. When I did, he squeezed some on, then began to rub it in, carefully. It burned a bit at first, then turned cold, but not in a bad way. Again, with us so close to each other, my first instinct was to pull back, like I had before. But instead, I made myself stay where I was and relax as his hand moved over mine.

“Done,” he said after a moment, when it was all rubbed in. “You’ll be healed by tomorrow.”

“That’s optimistic.”

“Well, you can expect your hand to fall off, if you want,” he said. “But personally, I just can’t subscribe to that way of thinking.”

I smiled despite myself. Looking up at his face, the sun just behind him, I thought of that first night, when he’d leaned over the fence. Then it had been impossible to make out his features, but here, all was clear, in the bright light of day. He wasn’t really at all what I’d assumed or expected, and I wondered if I’d surprised him, too.

Later, after he dropped me off, I came in to find Cora at the stove, peering down into a big pot as she stirred something. “Hey,” she called out as Roscoe ran to greet me, jumping up. “I didn’t think you were working today.”

“I wasn’t,” I said.

“Then where were you?”

“Everywhere,” I said, yawning. She looked up at me, quizzical, and I wondered why I didn’t just tell her the truth. But there was something about that day that I wanted to keep to myself, if just for a little while longer. “Do you need help with dinner?”

“Nah, I’m good. We’ll be eating in about a half hour, though, okay?”

I nodded, then headed up to my room. After dropping my bag onto the floor, I went out onto my balcony, looking across the yard and the pond to Nate’s house. Sure enough, a minute later I saw him carrying some things into the pool house, still working.

Back inside, I kicked off my shoes and climbed onto the bed, stretching out and closing my eyes. I was just about to drift off when I heard a jingle of tags and looked over to see Roscoe in the doorway to my room. Cora must have turned on the oven, I thought, waiting for him to move past me to my closet, where he normally huddled until the danger had passed. Instead, he came to the side of the bed, then sat down, peering up at me.